John Bercow

John Bercow (19 January 1963-) was a Conservative Party MP from Buckingham from 1 May 1997, succeeding George Walden. From 22 June 2009, he served as Speaker of the House of Commons, succeeding Michael Martin.

Biography
John Bercow was born in Edgware, Middlesex, England in 1963, and he came from a family of Romanian-Jewish descent. He was ranked as Britain's number-one junior tennis player as a youth before bronchial asthma prevented him from pursuing a professional career, and he graduated from the University of Essex in 1985 with a first-class degree in government. Bercow was very right-wing as a youth, but he later dismissed his old views as bone-headed and called his participation in the Conservative Monday Club as utter madness. He ran an advanced speaking and campaigning course for over 10 years, training over 600 Conservatives in campaigning and communication techniques. In 1986, he was elected as a Conservative councillor in Lambeth, London, serving for four years; he launched unsuccessful bids for Parliament in 1987 and 1992 before being elected MP for Buckingham in 1997. He served in Conservative shadow cabinets, and, in 2009, he became Speaker of the House of Commons; he went on to be the first Speaker since World War II to be re-elected three times. In 2014, he became Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, and he also became Chancellor of the University of Essex in June 2017. A member of his party's liberal wing, in October 2018 he announced that he would step down as Speaker in the summer of 2019 due to allegations of bullying made against him.